Monthly archives for July, 2013

The Votwo Gatorade triathlon was well organised, held at the Eton Rowing centre – the Olympic rowing venue. I was placed in the first wave which started at 8:00AM and so arrived 50 minutes early. There was a fair bit of queuing at registration and it took around 20 minutes to get my chip, swim cap and race numbers. Also there was a 10 minute walk from the parking area to the registration / transition area. So I found myself rushing to the race briefing and doing a quick bike racking while getting the wetsuit on. In hindsight I should have got in at least 20 minutes earlier. Once again thanks to M-Bear for her loyal assistance all through the morning.

Overall the race is nice and quick, flat and well laid out. Race timings are live and you can already see your results online as soon as you finish the race. Only thing is because there are a few waves your results keep changing throughout the day once later waves complete. Respectively my finish position went from 8th / 150 at 10AM to 12th / 300 at 4PM.

For spectators its a good race to watch as they can watch you easily over each segment and grab some food and or hot drinks.

Saturday – day before the race I went out with my buddy “the Warden”, for a 160km ride to Worthing and back. Garmin had 37.1km avg for the first 80km on the way down, so we were not hanging around.

This race was yet another example of a high tempo race where I have performed well the day after a very long endurance cycle. I’m now pretty certain of the strategy where I have a shorter distance race on a Sunday, like a half marathon, olympic distance tri or sprint go out and do a long endurance ride the day before. It ups my potential for holding a high tempo pace for longer the next day, or at least I feel somehow I feel I’m able to hold threshold for longer.

Overall I did o.k coming in at 12/300 Once again my open water swim should have been a few minutes better. This was my first run in around 5 weeks so was quite happy just to be able to run a fair pace without the “Plantar of the Apes” going chimp on me. I also held 300w on the bike for the entire ride without maxing out the heart rate and it feels good to be getting stronger.